This week, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and others representing President Donald Trump came to
Arizona with a breathtaking request: that the Arizona Legislature overturn the certified results of
last month’s election and deliver the state’s electoral college votes to President Trump. The rule
of law forbids us to do that.

Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Ellis made their case here at least twice—on Monday, at an unofficial public
gathering hosted by a small group of legislators; and again on Tuesday, during a closed-door
meeting at the State Capitol with Republican leaders from both chambers of the Legislature. Both
times, the Trump team made claims that the election was tainted by fraud but presented only
theories, not proof. U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr said on Tuesday that he, too, has “not
seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome of the election.”
Even if such evidence existed, the Arizona Legislature simply couldn’t do what is being asked.
Under our state’s constitution, the Legislature can act only when it is in session, and the Legislature
could call itself into a special session only with the support of a bipartisan supermajority of its
members.

That won’t materialize, but even if did, the Legislature couldn’t provide the recourse the
President’s team seeks. The U.S. Constitution authorizes each state to appoint presidential electors
“in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” For decades, Arizona law has required
that the voters elect the state’s electors on Election Day—this year, on November 3rd. And under
a law the Republican-led Legislature passed just three years ago, the state’s electors are required
to cast their votes for the candidates who received the most votes in the official statewide election
canvass. Enacted after the 2016 presidential election, in which President Trump won the electoral
college but not the popular vote, the law was aimed at ensuring that Arizona’s electors would
remain faithful to the vote of the people.

Our state’s canvass was completed on Monday, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris received the
most votes, so those are the candidates whom the state’s presidential electors must vote for.
Nothing in the U.S. Constitution or the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court even suggests that the
Arizona Legislature could retroactively appoint different electors who would cast their ballots for
2 different candidates. The Trump legal team has cited McPherson v. Blacker (1892), to claim that
the legislature can “resume the power [to appoint electors] at any time.” And it is true that the
Arizona Legislature could alter the method of appointing electors prospectively. But it cannot
undo the election of electors whom the voters already voted for. As the Supreme Court made clear
in Bush v. Gore (2000), “[w]hen the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its
people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental.”

No election is perfect, and if there were evidence of illegal votes or an improper count, then
Arizona law provides a process to contest the election: a lawsuit under state law. But the law does
not authorize the Legislature to reverse the results of an election.

As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election. I voted for
President Trump and worked hard to reelect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion
that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.

I and my fellow legislators swore an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and the constitution and
laws of the state of Arizona. It would violate that oath, the basic principles of republican
government, and the rule of law if we attempted to nullify the people’s vote based on unsupported
theories of fraud. Under the laws that we wrote and voted upon, Arizona voters choose who wins,
and our system requires that their choice be respected.

Forty years ago next month, President Ronald Reagan reminded us that while the “orderly transfer
of authority” is a “commonplace occurrence” for Americans, “n the eyes of many in the world,
this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.” Now, Americans
are being reminded once again never to take for granted what President Reagan correctly described
as “the continuity which is the bulwark of our Republic.”

Safety incidents

In April 1955, soon after mass polio vaccination began in the US, the Surgeon General began to receive reports of patients who contracted paralytic polio about a week after being vaccinated with Salk polio vaccine from Cutter pharmaceutical company, with the paralysis limited to the limb the vaccine was injected into. The Cutter vaccine had been used in vaccinating 200,000 children in the western and midwestern United States.[76] Later investigations showed that the Cutter vaccine had caused 40,000 cases of polio, killing 10.[76] In response the Surgeon General pulled all polio vaccine made by Cutter Laboratories from the market, but not before 250 cases of paralytic illness had occurred. Wyeth polio vaccine was also reported to have paralyzed and killed several children. It was soon discovered that some lots of Salk polio vaccine made by Cutter and Wyeth had not been properly inactivated, allowing live poliovirus into more than 100,000 doses of vaccine. In May 1955, the National Institutes of Health and Public Health Services established a Technical Committee on Poliomyelitis Vaccine to test and review all polio vaccine lots and advise the Public Health Service as to which lots should be released for public use. These incidents reduced public confidence in polio vaccine, leading to a drop in vaccination rates.[77]

However, recent evidence suggests that the nervous system fights back in an attempt to minimize pathology by increasing the expression of growth/trophic factors that confer neuroprotection and neuroplasticity. For example, even modest (“low dose”) IH elicits respiratory motor plasticity, increasing the strength of respiratory contractions and breathing. These low IH doses upregulate hypoxia-sensitive growth/trophic factors within respiratory motoneurons but do not elicit detectable pathologies such as hippocampal cell death, neuroinflammation, or systemic hypertension. Recent advances have been made toward understanding cellular mechanisms giving rise to IH-induced respiratory plasticity, and attempts have been made to harness the benefits of low-dose IH to treat respiratory insufficiency after cervical spinal injury. Our recent realization that IH also upregulates growth/trophic factors in nonrespiratory motoneurons and improves limb (or leg) function after incomplete chronic spinal injuries suggests that IH-induced plasticity is a general feature of motor systems. Collectively, available evidence suggests that low-dose IH may represent a safe and effective treatment to restore lost motor function in diverse clinical disorders that impair motor function.